Uncomfortable
by Commander
Summary: It had already been too late, ever since he had first said the words. One shot.


(AN: This is different from anything PPG I've ever written, lemme tell you. I need to give credit to two people: first, to GhostBloss from the Powerpuff-dot-com forums, who awhile ago mentioned this possible fic idea. I'll admit that it could probably have been done better in the hands of a more talented writer than I—or at least one with more inspiration, seeing as I've had little desire to write anything PPG anymore. The second kudos goes to Spug, whose amazing Darkwing Duck fanfic "Just Those Words" gave a lot of inspiration—I only hope I didn't lift too much from her fic, and that mine is only inspired from it and not a rip of it. (Plagiarism is bad, boys and girls.)

_The Powerpuff Girls _and all related characters are the property of Craig McCracken and Cartoon Network.)

…………

"Your hair's pretty."

That had been the start of it.

The night air was cold against her skin, too thick to breathe comfortably. Anyone in his right mind was inside that night, but not Blossom.

She wasn't in her right mind—hadn't been for a long time.

She had always told herself that she would never fall so quickly for a man with only flattering words that were a poor substitute for sincerity. At least, she _would _have told herself that if there had ever been any chance of it ever happening. No one noticed Blossom. She was the boring Powerpuff Girl. Everyone loved Bubbles and her sweetness, and Buttercup and her attitude. Blossom only had strategy that confused Bubbles and aggravated Buttercup, and confused and aggravated everyone else, too.

He had only said it to throw her off, she knew. Like he cared about hair, anyway. His hair, the exact same fiery red as her own, was long and messy because he couldn't be bothered to care for it. He couldn't be bothered to care for anything, anything save making life for everyone in Townsville hell. Especially for her.

"Your hair's pretty," he had said suddenly, out of the blue, causing Blossom to immediately freeze, unable to continue fighting him.

Brick smiled disarmingly. "I _almost _don't want to fight you." The stress on the word "almost" had to have been intentional.

Blossom continued to gape. _"What _did you say?" she asked, astonished.

"I said I almost don't want to fight you."

"No… before that…"

"I said your hair's pretty." His smile hadn't left his face. "So are your eyes. Maybe a little too pink for my tastes, but still pretty. I bet you get that a lot."

"Nev—" she began, but cut herself off before it was too late.

Except it was already too late.

The next time she saw him, it was outside the context of fighting him while her sisters fought his brothers. As her mind had raced, her body had too, taking her to flying above Townsville with no real direction or purpose.

He had been there too, also without direction or purpose. Just like his life was.

"Fancy meeting you here," he had said, in a drawling voice, more interested in examining the rustling trees behind her than herself.

"I… I go flying often, when I have a lot on my mind," she stammered.

"Me too," he said, sounding too rehearsed. Blossom didn't believe him, but she was mesmerized that he had said it.

He finally looked at her. "Your hair looks nice today."

"R-really? Well, I didn't really…" Except she had really. She had spent two hours fixing her hair that day, thinking of him with every tug of the hairbrush, hoping that she'd hear his empty praise again. Empty praise that filled her, not with happiness or joy or even contentment, but more as if it were a drug—she'd never get enough, it would never make her happy, but she still needed more and more.

"You must have spent a long time working on it." He grinned. "And just for me. How sweet." He reached out and stroked her hair with his fingerless hand.

Blossom nearly fell from the sky. She had been hoping and praying that he wouldn't touch her, that he wouldn't pursue the subject of her hair any farther—for she knew that if he did, there would be no going back.

It had already been too late, ever since he had first said the words.

The air bit at her even more harshly when her mind replayed them for the millionth time.

Whenever she went out for a fly to clear her mind of the whimsical fantasies that it couldn't seem to dispose of, he was there, both answering those fantasies and shattering them into a thousand pieces. He needed only compliment her, and then she was his, his to have his way with. No one ever suspected anything. Blossom's family was used to her nightly flies, and Brick could silence his brothers' questioning with one, forceful, _"None of your goddamn business!" _and that was the end of that. It was not every night, but rarely more than two days went between their meetings.

Brick didn't even ask the first time, on the flat roof of a towering office building where no land-bound commoner could see, when he pulled up her skirt and pulled down her panties and took her virginity. In fact, he rarely said anything to her at all, except for the occasional repeated compliment on her looks whenever she'd start to squirm with guilt underneath him. It was like this every night they were together—usually shielded from the world atop a skyscraper, but sometimes on a sturdy branch of a tree, and sometimes just in the air. It was always uncomfortable, but Brick didn't mind—in fact, he preferred it that way, for their relationship itself was uncomfortable.

He did not consider himself to be using her. In the original, no-strings-attached use of the word, he certainly was, but to use someone has the added connotation that he would abandon her and forget about her whenever he tired of her. He had no intentions of growing tired of her, and even if he did, he knew she was too valuable an asset to throw away. He knew Blossom's reputation as well as anyone else in Townsville, and to expect her to turn on her sisters and morality and join him was preposterous. It was even highly unlikely that she would lie for him and cover up his misdeeds. But there was one thing that she could do, despite her best intentions. She could become distracted by him. She could become confused, her mind racing one way and her heart the other.

Blossom looked up to the sky, tears glistening in her eyes. Brick was not there tonight, much to her relief and despair.

She was used to crying. She often did during the sex. She hated being such a walking cliché, but she was not crying for happiness, for joy, or even confusion. Her tears were angry and bitter, disgusted at herself and the fact that of all the people in the world to grow to so absolutely depend on, it had to be _him._

Brick.

…………

Mojo Jojo never set himself out to be a voyeur. Granted, he had the means to. His telescope was powerful enough to peep into the windows of any Townsville resident he chose, yet this thought had never crossed his mind. He was a scientist, after all. Reckless carnality not only had no place in his life, other desires and thoughts so crowded his mind that they had completely pushed any shadows of those instincts out of his mind forever.

That night, then, his finding any two people in the act of sexual intercourse, much less Blossom and Brick, was as far from his intentions as one could get. In some crazed vengeful craving, dead-set on making Townsville pay for a crime that he wasn't exactly sure of the exact details, he was scanning the rooftops of the city, looking for the perfect place to set off a bomb and shake Townsville to its roots.

Then he had seen them, and forgot all about the bomb.

"This… this cannot be!" he stammered, seeing the events, although thousands of feet away from him, unfold with crystal clarity through his telescope. "Blossom, the leader of the Powerpuff Girls, with Brick, my own wayward son?"

He asked this as if he couldn't believe Blossom would allow it. He continued to stare, and realized that, somehow, she _wasn't _allowing it.

He could hear nothing of their conversation when the act was over, but Brick's lazy smirk, and the way Blossom looked at the ground rather than him conveyed everything to him.

Mojo couldn't sleep that night.

He watched them again, and again, and again, night after night, and it was always the same.

Couldn't Blossom see that she was merely Brick's sexual outlet, and nothing more?

Apparently so, judging by her downcast eyes before, during, and after the sex.

Then why did she still go to him?

Brick may have been Mojo's son, but Mojo had all but disowned the Rowdyruff Boys. They displayed none of the intelligence that Mojo so prided himself on, and very rarely the craftiness. Brick was the only one of the three, in Mojo's opinion, who could have been great, but it had been apparent long ago that Brick had no intention of becoming the criminal mastermind that Mojo was.

It disgusted him.

"Blossom deserves better," Mojo hissed.

Wait.

_WHAT?_

Mojo had completely closed his heart off to any tender emotions, ever since the Moko Jono disaster. He swore to never again have feelings that would get him carried away in foolish fantasies, and he had adhered to that. Why, then, was his resolve suddenly unraveling for the sake of _Blossom? _Blossom, his sworn enemy for years, since she had been in kindergarten!

Blossom's intelligence knew no bounds. Mojo had known this longer than almost anyone else in Townsville.

Why, then, would she be content with such an oafish boar like Brick, who could never ignite her clever mind the way…

…the way Mojo could?

"Blossom deserves better," Mojo whispered again, bitterly, for saying twice affirmed that he was not simply speaking without thinking this time. He meant what he said.

Through the telescope, he saw Brick ravish Blossom, who winced and opened her mouth in what must have been a restricted cry of pain, and his blood boiled.

How _dare _Brick treat a girl like Blossom like that?

"For goodness sake, she is my _enemy!" _Mojo suddenly shouted, shaking his head as if trying to shake out his newly bubbling thoughts as well. "It should make no difference to me that she is being screwed senseless by a male who is less than her caliber. In fact, that is what she deserves for standing in my way all these years!"

_She deserves better._

"No! She deserves what she is getting!"

_She deserves better._

"She deserves nothing but the worst for what she has done to me!"

_She deserves better._

"She…"

_SHE DESERVES BETTER._

Mojo tried to tear himself away from the telescope, but it was like watching a train wreck. He couldn't tear his eyes away.

…………

Brick sat that night on Mojo Jojo's volcano-top observatory for a change. The metal was cold and hard and he liked it that way. Blossom was probably looking for him, which didn't matter much to him. If she found him, fine. If she didn't find him, fine. He surprised himself by thinking that—when this had started, he had thought that every day without sex with Blossom would be a day of depravation and yearning, but oddly—and thankfully—he didn't seem to need it as much as she did.

He smirked. Cruel for Blossom. She needed him more and wanted him less.

The sound of a latch opening caused Brick to turn and look behind him, where a very disgruntled Mojo was climbing out of his lair.

"What do you think you are doing here, you miserable excuse for a villain? Get off of my home, my abode, my place of residence, before I forcibly remove you from said home by force!"

"Aw, come on, 'pops'. Can't a guy just watch the stars in peace?" Brick sneered.

"That is not what you have been doing, you little bastard," snapped Mojo, more angrily than he had intended. "I will not allow your teenage hormonally-charged frivolities to take place on my roof!"

"You're a peeping tom!" Brick cried, sounding rather amused and pleased. "You've been pointing that telescope at us every night, haven't you? I always knew you were a pervert."

"I could _slap _your insolent little face!" said Mojo. "You think only with your testicles and do not pause to consider the consequences of what you are doing to a girl whose intelligence vastly overshadows your own!"

Brick looked at Mojo in shock. "You pimp. You're jealous, that's what you are."

"I am no such thing! I have no wish to become a hormonally-crazed boy driven only by the feelings in his pants as you are! I am disgusted with you!"

"Don't try that. You know that's not what I meant. You want Blossom."

Mojo winced at finally hearing the truth said aloud.

"I do not! I am merely saying that a girl of her vast intelligence—which is her _only _redeeming quality, mind you!—deserves much better than an ox such as yourself!"

"You mean, she deserves _you?" _said Brick, the amusing lilt in his voice completely vanished.

"Not… not necessarily _me," _Mojo said quickly, "but someone of like intelligence, to appreciate Blossom for who she is, and not just because she happens to possess female sexual organs! Someone who could stimulate her mind the way it needs to be…"

"And who would _that _be?" growled Brick. "Do you, being the pompous ass you've always been, honestly believe that there is someone like that, besides _yourself?"_

"I would be better suited for her than you are!" Mojo spat out. "And how dare you refer to me as a pompous ass? I am Mojo Jojo—I am the scourge of the entire city—I am—"

"_You? _You honestly believe that _you're _the best match for Blossom?" Brick laughed harshly, a laugh that temporarily covered his growing anger and possessiveness. "You're a _monkey, _for Christ's sake! You talk about being best suited for her—who else could that be but _me? _You're right about one thing—she needs someone like her. Look at me. I _am _her, just the opposite sex."

"The fact that you look like her means nothing for your potential compatibility!" cried Mojo. "What matters is the mind—she needs a like mind, which is something that you do not possess! Your intelligence is nothing more than mediocre, whereas mine is on par with hers! She values brains over beauty," he said, his words weighed down by emotions that he hadn't intended on releasing, "and brains I have. Thus, I am a thousand times better suited for her!"

Brick growled before smiling. "But who's the one who's been fucking her every other night?"

Mojo flung himself at Brick with a roar of rage.

A roar that reached the ears of Blossom, who was still swimming in the air, letting her fancies carry her wherever they flowed.

She found them easily and quickly, Brick holding Mojo in a deadlock, Mojo's arms still flailing wildly in a vain effort to hurt the Rowdyruff Boy.

"Brick! What—what are you doing?" she gasped. "What happened?"

"Blossom, you are a _fool!" _gasped Mojo, still struggling to get out of Brick's grasp. "You deserve so much better than this lecherous waste of human life!"

"As if he cares about you," sneered Brick. "He's your sworn enemy, even more so than me. He just wants you to be hurt."

"_He _just wants you to be hurt!" cried Mojo.

"True. At least I don't lie about it."

"But I could _understand _you, Blossom, far more than he could! He lacks your mind. But I have it. Don't you see, Blossom? I could intellectually stimulate you in ways that this simpleton couldn't even dream of. You are squandering your magnificent mind on this lowlife!"

"I…" Blossom began. The scenery around her was starting to spin. Brick talked of her appearance, Mojo talked of her mind—if only someone could see and appreciate _both _at the same time.

"Bee-bee-bee-beep—newsflash, Mojo. You can't appreciate her mind if your own has stopped working," said Brick, strangely calm.

He forced Mojo's head back, snapping his neck.

Blossom cried out in horror.

And Brick smiled as he let Mojo's lifeless body slide out of his grasp.

"Why did you do that?" cried Blossom, tears running down her face, her voice quavering. "Why did you _do _that?!"

"Because he was a threat," said Brick with a nonchalant shrug. "He could have come between you and me. You wouldn't have wanted that, would you?"

"You killed him," she said in disbelief. "You're a murderer. You _killed _him…"

"Look at it as protecting the city," he said. "He was dangerous. I just did everyone a favor."

"When the police catch you…"

"They're not going to catch me!" he laughed. "I've got superpowers. Even if they did catch me, you'd bust me out of jail eventually anyway."

"No I wouldn't," growled Blossom. "You're just as dangerous as Mojo—even more so. You need to be behind bars, you monster! I'm going to get the police—"

"You'll do no such thing," said Brick. "And if I do get arrested, you'll set me free, when you realize you can't live without me."

Blossom's voice got caught in her throat, although it was just as well, because she couldn't remember what she was going to say. "Why… why did you kill him?" she whispered, staring down at Mojo's body.

"Because if he had kept that up, you might have gone for him instead. I'm the only one you'll ever want or need. Forget about Mojo, forget about anyone else—I'll kill the entire world if I have to."

He flew off, leaving Blossom alone with a lifeless Mojo and her dying dreams.

…………

Brick was right about one thing, at least. When the police found Mojo's body the next day, Blossom never told.


End file.
